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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317210">Change of Heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wolf 359 (Radio)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(from hell), Gen, Mind Games, Teambuilding, box 953</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:26:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,984</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317210</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Eiffel didn't hide in the storage room during the events of Box 953? What if, at the end of their two year review, Cutter decided they could really use a team building exercise to make certain that everything was running as smoothly as possible?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Hilbert &amp; Eris, Alexander Hilbert &amp; Isabel Lovelace, Doug Eiffel &amp; Renée Minkowski, Eris &amp; Isabel Lovelace, Hera &amp; Alexander Hilbert, Hera &amp; Isabel Lovelace, Hera &amp; Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace &amp; Renée Minkowski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraCloud/gifts">AuroraCloud</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintlyMacabre/gifts">FaintlyMacabre</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/gifts">Wildehack (tyleet)</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/gifts">callunavulgari</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/gifts">illumynare</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you have been gifted this, it was inspired by one of your Yuletide prompts, either specifically or by the list of things you like in general in fics. It is not, however, going in the Yuletide collection because it is not yet complete, as it, uh, got a little out of hand. Hopefully it will be soon, but if not, I hope you enjoy what there is of it so far.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Deep Space Survival Tip Number 83. Actions speak louder than words. Mysterious accidents speak louder than actions. Nothing speaks in outer space—<em>jesus</em>!” Doug stared down at his copy of Pryce and Carter in horror. “What is this thing?” he muttered.</p><p>“Ahem.”</p><p>Doug jumped. “Commander! There you are! I was just—“ the pulse beacon relay at his side beeped and began spitting out a long strip of paper. “—just dealing with this <em>priority one</em> mission objective that Command just sent our way!”</p><p>“Uh-huh. Priority one you say,” Commander Minkowski said drily, eying the copy of Pryce and Carter that Doug was still clutching to his chest in a dubious fashion before turning her sights on the relay’s printer. “Want to tell me what that actually says?”</p><p>“Just a moment!”</p><p>“Oh, no rush. Just waiting for you to <em>finally</em> do your job. Like you told Cutter you’d be doing.”</p><p>Doug rolled his eyes and ripped the strip of paper off the relay. It was longer than he’d expected, curled up around itself and marred by the bright red streaks that appeared when the paper roll needed to be replaced. As he scanned it, Minkowski pushed past him with an aggravated sigh and took care of replacing the roll.</p><p>“Huh.”</p><p>“Eiffel?”</p><p>“No, it’s just…” He read it again to be sure. “It actually <em>is</em> a priority one mission objective.”</p><p>“Give me that.” Minkowski snatched it out of his hands and scanned the first few lines. “…huh.” And then she handed it back.</p><p>“What am I supposed to do with this!”</p><p>“I don’t know!” she said, irritated. “I didn’t read it!”</p><p>“Wait, what, why not?” He gave her a confused look. She was always <em>annoyingly</em> eager to stick her nose into things that weren’t her concern at all.</p><p>“Did you miss the bit where it says it’s for your eyes only?”</p><p>He had. “Well, it doesn’t say it’s for my <em>ears </em>only, and you’re still the Commander here.” He frowned down at the strip of paper. “And after what we just went through, I’m not exactly <em>eager </em>to take instructions from Command without questioning them, and you’re <em>way</em> better at asking questions than I am.”</p><p>“Was that a compliment?” Minkowski asked, mollified.</p><p>“No.” He read the paper a third time. “It’s instructions for opening something called Box 953.”</p><p>“Box 953? Does it give any further details?”</p><p>“Just that it’s down in storage room A2, and that going through its contents is a priority one mission objective. Oh, and there’s a note from Mr. Cutter down here at the bottom.”</p><p>Minkowski frowned. “Of course there is. What does <em>that</em> say?”</p><p>“Well, it’s from Mr. Cutter, so if there’s any actual meaning here it’s pretty obscure. Let’s see…” Doug muttered to himself as he scanned through the note. “Useless platitude, empty threat… ah, here we go. All it really says is that it should help us with some of our, uh, <em>personnel management problems</em>.”</p><p>Minkowski shuddered. “Yeah, that’s not exactly reassuring, coming from that man.”</p><p>“Mm.” Doug stared contemplatively down at the piece of paper. He didn’t think he’d ever even <em>been</em> in storage room A2.</p><p>“But… looking at the expression on your face, you’re probably going to go try opening it whether I help you or not, so let’s go take a look at this box.” Minkowski clapped him firmly on the shoulder.</p><p>“Wait, really? You don’t think it’s too much of a risk to go open it?” But Doug was excited now. Not that living on this station was ever <em>boring</em>, but it had been a while since they’d had a real mystery on their hands.</p><p>“Like I said, better I help you open it now than find out that you opened it and let something horrible out two hours from now.” She shrugged. “And anyway, I think Captain Lovelace is taking some down time, which means there are no current shuttle repairs to work on, and… well, everything’s more or less in place for that other thing.” That other thing being their plan to spoof Hera’s sensors into seeing a meteor storm that wasn’t there in a bid to get Captain Lovelace to disarm the bomb attached to the shuttle’s engine.</p><p>“Okay. I guess we’re doing this.” Doug tucked the piece of paper into one of his pockets and zipped it shut. “Beats staring at the ceiling of Hilbert’s lab for the next six-to-eight hours while I try to sleep.”</p><p>Minkowski cracked her knuckles. “Let’s go get some crowbars.”</p>
<hr/><p>Storage Room A2, when they reached it, turned out to be both massive and full of wonders. And horrors.</p><p>“That’s a skull,” Renée said, examining the contents of the latest crate they’d pried open.</p><p>“That’s a really <em>weird</em> skull.” Eiffel made a face.</p><p>“Eh, I’ve seen weirder.” Renée shoved the crate lid back on and banged the corners back into place. “We’re not getting anywhere.”</p><p>“The packing list says it’s in here, at least,” Eiffel said, scanning the contents of the clipboard he was holding.</p><p>“The packing list also says there’s a crate full of red, l-shaped Lego blocks.” She paused for emphasis. “And another with a <em>cannon</em>. I’m not exactly taking it as a reliable source here.”</p><p>“Well, that’s easy to check.” Eiffel rotated, scanning the surrounding crates. “I think I saw Box 56 right… ah-hah!” He made a dive for one of the crates and anchored himself before prying the lid off. “Holy shit, there actually <em>is</em> a cannon in here. Why is there a cannon? What practical use could a cannon have on a space station?”</p><p>“It’s not loaded, is it?” Something like that could breach the hull, and the thought that it might have been sitting down here ready to fire for the past two years gave Renée cold shudders.</p><p>“How am I supposed to know? You’re the munitions expert, you tell me.”</p><p>Renée made a childish and completely undignified face at the back of Eiffel’s head and then pushed off to go join him, grabbing his shoulder to come to a halt. A careful examination of the cannon revealed… well, nothing, because she knew absolutely nothing about firing 18th century pieces of siege weaponry. “I don’t think it’s going to go off any time soon,” she said, mentally planning to come back in here once Eiffel was gone and make certain it was completely defused. “But this doesn’t get us any closer to finding that Box 953 of yours.”</p><p>“You guys <em>could</em> ask me about it,” Hera chimed in over the comms. “And you should probably hurry this up. Stellar projections are showing a lot of chop coming our way in the next day or so, and I’d prefer to have Commander Minkowski’s backup for navigation.”</p><p>“All right, fine, if you’re so smart, where <em>is</em> it?” Renée asked irritably.</p><p>“On the far side of the store room. Right behind Box 102.”</p><p>“Hera, we <em>looked </em>at Box 102,” Eiffel said. “There wasn’t anything there.”</p><p>“Well, you should take another look,” Hera shot back, sounding annoyed. “It’s there, I promise! All the boxes in here have RFID tags, and that’s where Box 953’s is registering.”</p><p>Renée pushed off towards the far wall, Eiffel just visible out of her peripheral vision as he followed her. She examined the wall behind box 102 with a frown. “Hera, there’s nothing here, just the—oh.” Suddenly, what had been an incomprehensible crevice between two sections of wall became the line delineating the top of Box 953, which sprang into existence like the image in a magic eye puzzle.</p><p>“Wow, that’s…” Eiffel said breathlessly at her side before trailing off.</p><p>“Big,” Renée finished.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Well, you know what they say. It’s not the size that matters.”</p><p>“<em>Commander!</em>” Eiffel shot her a scandalized look.</p><p>“What? You think you have a monopoly on dirty jokes around here?” Renée rolled up the sleeves of her flight suit and took stock of Box 953, making note of anchor points and weld marks.</p><p>“I’d expect that sort of thing from Lovelace, but <em>you</em>…” He still sounded scandalized, but his attention was on the box, clearly making note of the same things she just had. “What do you think? Will the crowbars do it?”</p><p>“We might also want one of those <em>really</em> big wrenches from that toolbox in engineering, unless your instructions say to do something else.”</p><p>“Oh, right.” Eiffel unzipped his pocket and fished the piece of paper back out. “Nope. We’ll also need… a Phillip’s head screwdriver? Apparently?”</p><p>Renée shrugged. “Sounds reasonable to me. I’ll head down to engineering if you want to hit up the aft deck toolbox for a screwdriver.”</p><p>“Assuming the plant monster hasn’t stolen them all again,” Eiffel muttered.</p><p>“Hey, we have a deal. It can<em> borrow</em> the screwdrivers. As long as it puts them back again.”</p><p>“How’s that going for us?”</p><p>Renée grimaced. “How about you tell me after you get back from aft deck.”</p><p>Doug rolled his eyes and shot her a lazy salute. “Sir, yes sir! Super eager to get eaten by a territorial plant monster, sir!”</p><p>“Oh, get out of here,” she said, shoving him in the direction of the storage room’s door. “It’s not going to eat you.”</p><p>“Not going to eat me, or not going to eat me <em>yet</em>?”</p><p>“Better be on good behavior or you’ll find out.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Isabel woke up from her nap—well, her attempt to nap, which had probably only resulted in about five minutes of actual, restful sleep—feeling both groggy and wired. She wasn’t sure how it was possible to feel both ways, but it was how she woke up almost every time she attempted to sleep, and she <em>hated</em> it.</p>
<p>But as much as she’d like to try, even she couldn’t keep going forever. Not even with coffee.</p>
<p>Not that they had coffee here.</p>
<p>Selberg’s seaweed stimulant tea was a surprisingly good substitute, for all that she hated giving the man credit for anything. Kept her awake, at least, and she needed it right now.</p>
<p>It was only after she’d downed the first cup of it that she realized that the mess hall was weirdly quiet for this time of day. “Hey, Hera, are Minkowski and Eiffel asleep or something?”</p>
<p>“No, they’re down in storage room A2,” Hera said, as pleasantly as she ever spoke to Isabel. There was always that undercurrent of vitriol where she was concerned.</p>
<p>Isabel frowned. “Why are they in storage room A2?”</p>
<p>Hera’s response sounded distracted, as if most of her attention was elsewhere. “Officer Eiffel got a message from Command telling them to open one of the boxes down there, so they’re checking it out.”</p>
<p>“They’re opening a box. Because Command said so. And they decided this was a priority?”</p>
<p>“Honestly, I think Commander Minkowski thought it was a good way to keep Eiffel busy for a bit with something relatively low-energy. Though they <em>have</em> had to bust out a blowtorch.”</p>
<p>“A blowtorch. To open a box?” The horrible thought that had been lingering in the back of Isabel’s mind thrust its way forward. “Wait, is it—they’re not—are they opening Box 953?”</p>
<p>“Wow, yeah, got it in one. How did you know?”</p>
<p>Isabel was already on the move, pushing her way down the corridor in the direction of the storage room as fast as possible. “Hera, whatever they’re doing, tell them to stop, <em>now</em>. Don’t open that box.”</p>
<p>“A little late for that.”</p>
<p>“HERA.”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay! What’s the big deal with this box anyway?”</p>
<p>“It’s bad news, okay? I… I don’t know if I can explain it.” Isabel’s memories of her crew’s encounter with Box 953 were hazy and scattered, but she knew one thing: if they opened that box, something terrible could—and probably <em>would</em>—happen.</p>
<p>When she burst through the door into the storage room, Eiffel and Minkowski both looked up from where they were studying the open—and mercifully empty—slots on the front of Box 953.</p>
<p>“Woah, Captain, what’s the rush?” Doug asked. “Hera passed on your memo. We’re not touching the big scary box.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Isabel panted, out of breath. “Just… come a little further away from it, okay? And keep your hands away from the slots in the front.”</p>
<p>Doug laughed. “Oh, we already tried that. Nothing happened.” He stuck his hand into one of the slots. “See?”</p>
<p>Before any of them could react, a seal rushed in around Doug’s wrist, trapping his hand in the machine.</p>
<p>“EIFFEL!” Isabel and Minkowski bellowed in unison.</p>
<p>“Woah, it didn’t do that be… fore...” Doug’s voice trailed off with the sentence, and an instant later he appeared to be completely unconscious.</p>
<p>“<em>Goddamnit</em>, Eiffel, why don’t you ever <em>listen</em> when people tell you not to do something?” Minkowski scolded Eiffel’s unconscious body. She reached out and pressed her fingers to his neck. “Well, at least he still has a pulse.” She turned to Isabel, a thunderous expression on her face. “What the <em>hell</em> does this thing do?”</p>
<p>“Oh, god…” Isabel stared at the machine, wide-eyed. “I’m not doing it again, you hear me? I’m not!” she yelled at it.</p>
<p>“HEY!” Minkowski was suddenly up in Isabel’s space, giving her a light tap on the side of the face with the palm of her hand, a short, sharp little shock that broke Isabel out of the entirely uncharacteristic panic attack she had been about to succumb to. “Captain Lovelace, I need you to stay <em>here</em>. And <em>calm</em>. Remember your dead man’s switch.”</p>
<p>Isabel took a deep breath, and then another. Minkowski did the same, keeping Isabel to a slow and steady pace.</p>
<p>“That’s better,” Minkowski said after a few minutes. “Tell me. What does that thing do?”</p>
<p>Isabel shook her head, still incapable of putting words to it. “I… Selberg,” she said, still feeling scattered. “He might be able to…”</p>
<p>“Get Eiffel out of this? You sure?” When Isabel nodded, Minkowski pressed a firm hand to her shoulder for a moment. “All right. You stay here and focus on your breathing. I’m going to go get Hilbert, all right? Just keep an eye on Doug, keep calm, and I’ll be <em>right</em> back.”</p>
<p>Isabel nodded blankly.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Alexander took one look at the situation in the storage room and let out an unamused bark of laughter. “Oh, Officer Eiffel. Trust you to get in trouble like this.”</p>
<p>“Can you disconnect him?” Isabel asked sharply.</p>
<p>Alexander frowned and studied the front of Box 953. “…perhaps. But you remember last time. Is hooked directly up to his nervous system. Cannot guarantee that there will not be extensive brain damage.”</p>
<p>“Let’s not do that,” Commander Minkowski said, her tone final. “What are our other options?”</p>
<p>“We… could enter program. Play it out.”</p>
<p>“Oh no. I’m not doing that again.” Isabel stared at the front of the box with wide, worried eyes.</p>
<p>“May not be any other option,” Alexander said, feeling rather as if he were trying to explain something to a small child not yet capable of logic. “Right now, circuit is incomplete. We attach ourselves, and poof, it completes. Play through scenario as presented, come out other side.”</p>
<p>“Right. Because that went <em>so</em> well last time,” Isabel spat, her expression furious as she rounded on Alexander.</p>
<p>“We all survived!”</p>
<p>“Tell me, how many times did the thing in that box threaten to erase your mind?”</p>
<p>Alexander deflated a little at that. Yes, Eris had been in earnest when she had threatened to erase his mind. Even so, he could not resist sniping back at Isabel. “Am wondering why you are not encouraging me, then! You want me dead, do you not?”</p>
<p>Isabel flinched. “Look…”</p>
<p>“It does not matter.” He turned his attention back to the box. “Perhaps... If we connect AI unit… what is saying, fight fire with fire?”</p>
<p>“Would that work?” Isabel asked, clearly back on the job.</p>
<p>“Wait, I’m lost,” Minkowski interjected. “Are you saying that there’s an AI unit in there?”</p>
<p>Alexander grimaced. “Not… exactly. Something like an AI unit, but…”</p>
<p>“Twisted,” Isabel said hollowly.</p>
<p>“But to return to matter at hand…” Alexander pushed off and anchored to the wall that was currently everyone else’s ceiling in order to examine one of the upper corners of the box. He probed it carefully with his fingertips. “If schematics are similar to last time we encountered Box 953, there should be access panel right about—ah-hah.” A piece of the box’s siding popped away, revealing a mess of wires. “Next just hardwire AI into system and allow her to get to work.”</p>
<p>“Hera?” Minkowski asked. “Is this something you can do?”</p>
<p>“I… I don’t know.” Hera sounded worried. “Hacking another AI isn’t <em>exactly</em> something they program us for. In fact, we’re strongly discouraged from doing so.”</p>
<p>“Would be better if she had robust firewall,” Alexander muttered as he examined the wiring. “Could program one in—“</p>
<p>“No!” Hera shouted, accompanied by an echo from Minkowski and Isabel.</p>
<p>“Temper, temper. Was just a suggestion. No need to be cranky.”</p>
<p>“Are there any other options? You have access to the wiring, couldn’t you… I don’t know, short it out and get this thing to release him?” Isabel said.</p>
<p>“Do I need to remind you that this machine is hooked directly into Officer Eiffel’s nervous system?” he snapped. “Use your brain, Lovelace! Without knowing which wires are connected to which systems, would have to proceed by trial and error. Might release Eiffel. Might also cause machine to give him a lethal dose of sedative! Or send a thousand volts through his nervous system!”</p>
<p>“O-kay,” Minkowski said into the stunned silence that followed that rant. “So that’s a no, then.” She cleared her throat. “But you can connect Hera without harming him?”</p>
<p>Alexander tugged one of the wires free of its bundle. “Fiber optics cable. Should allow direct access to Box 953’s operating system. Could splice Hera in no problem.”</p>
<p>“Then let’s do that to start. Doctor, what do you need?”</p>
<p>“Pair of pliers with wire-strippers,” Alexander said, examining the bundle of wires again. “Rubber gloves. Electrical tape. Length of fiber-optic cable long enough to reach Hera’s closest access point. Some small-gauge copper wire might also come in handy.”</p>
<p>“I’ll go get that,”Minkowski said calmly. “Captain Lovelace, you good to keep an eye on these two?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, sure,” Isabel said, sounding distracted.</p>
<p>Alexander ignored them both, intent on the job ahead of him as he carefully sorted through the visible wires.</p>
<p>After a few minutes, Isabel cleared her throat. “Look, Selberg…”</p>
<p>He refused to give her the satisfaction of looking up to see what sort of expression she had on her face. “It does not matter. I will do the job I am here to do.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean…”</p>
<p>“Isabel, please. I know my survival is contingent on my continued usefulness to this crew. Do not try to assuage hurt feelings that I certainly do not have.”</p>
<p>“Good. Fine. So we’re good then.”</p>
<p>At this he did glance up, glaring at her over the top of his glasses. “Yes. Some day you intend to murder me, slowly and painfully, and I know it. We are good.”</p>
<p>“Can’t murder a cockroach.”</p>
<p>“Isabel…” He turned his attention back to her, planning to scold her, just in time to see her eyes widen in shock.</p>
<p>“There are four slots,” she said breathlessly, staring at the front of the box, confusion and fear warring for supremacy on her face.</p>
<p>“What?” Alexander peered down over the front of the box. Counting the one currently occupied by Officer Eiffel’s hand, there were four open slots in the front of Box 953. “That… does not make sense.”</p>
<p>“You guys don’t have some crew member who died before I showed up, do you?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Minkowski reappeared in the doorway of the storage room. “Anyone dead?” When neither of them were able to answer immediately, she kicked off for their position and joined them. “Hello? Is Eiffel okay?”</p>
<p>“Officer Eiffel is fine,” Alexander said distantly. “Captain Lovelace and I were just noticing…”</p>
<p>“There are four slots in the front of this box,” Isabel said. “One for each of us.”</p>
<p>“And that’s relevant because…?”</p>
<p>“Last time there were the same number as people on mission,” Alexander said. “Which must mean—”</p>
<p>“Command knew that I was coming back!” Isabel said, turning her wide-eyed gaze on Alexander. “You think so too!”</p>
<p>He shook his head. “No. They could not have foreseen—“ he cut himself off abruptly and pressed his fingertips to his temple for a moment as he searched for a way to make his meaning as clear as possible. “I swear to you,” he said, holding Isabel’s gaze, steady and intent. “Command has lied to me about many things over the years. But they would not have lied to me about your death, Isabel.” His voice rasped hard in his throat.</p>
<p>“You keep saying that, but I don’t believe you any more now than I did the first time,” Isabel snarled. “All anyone knows what to do in that place is lie. To each other, to us...”</p>
<p>“And that is all nonsense when there is more logical explanation. Machine has malleable physical layout. May also have sensors to detect life signs aboard station. It could have set itself up for number of participants based on that.”</p>
<p>“That still means this goddamn thing knew I was here!” Isabel anchored herself on a handhold and aimed a kick at the corner of the box.</p>
<p>“Should you be doing that?” Minkowski asked, worried.</p>
<p>“Should be fine,” Alexander said, hoping that was the case. “Box is very large. Must have powerful shock absorption to handle being bolted to station wall the way it is. Small vibrations should not upset internal systems.”</p>
<p>“Sure. But maybe… don’t do that again?” Minkowski suggested in Isabel’s direction as she started handing Alexander the results of her raid on their electrical engineering supplies.</p>
<p>“Probably for better, yes.” Alexander took a pair of rubber gloves from Minkowski and slipped them on. “Right. Let’s do this.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Doug had no idea where he was.</p><p>Well, all right, he knew where he was, because he could see it. But given that all he could see around him was a featureless white void, and the last time he’d checked, the Hephaestus didn’t have featureless white voids on its floor plan, he was pretty sure he wasn’t where he’d been.</p><p>Unless… there had been that pinch in the back of his hand…</p><p>“So am I, like, hooked up to the Matrix now?” he asked the empty air in front of him.</p><p>“Perhaps not one hundred percent accurate, but an apt comparison,” Mr. Cutter’s voice came from somewhere behind Doug, making him jump. “Aren’t you just full of surprises, Doug.”</p><p>Doug spun around to face the man. “Mr. Cutter. You’re… in here?”</p><p>Cutter laughed. “Oh, only about as much as you are. Even less, I suppose, since Box 953 is projecting right into your head, and I’m…” he sighed and shrugged theatrically. “Well, I’m just a shadow of myself in here.”</p><p>“Okay. Sure,” Doug said skeptically. “So, if we’re sticking with the Matrix metaphor, this is what, the construct?”</p><p>“We prefer to call it the waiting room.” Cutter gestured expansively at the empty void.</p><p>Doug frowned. “Not exactly useful, Agent Smith.”</p><p>“I think I’m more of a Morpheus type. After all, I’m here to be your guide..”</p><p>“So what happens now? You offer me a red pill and a blue pill and I get to wake up from this nightmare?”</p><p>That got another laugh from Cutter. “Now? We wait.”</p><p>“Because this is a waiting room.”</p><p>“That’s right.”</p><p>“Mind telling me what we’re waiting for?”</p><p>Cutter’s smile flashed across his face, sharp and bright and dangerous. “Oh, you’ll see.”</p>
<hr/><p>Hilbert went about splicing Hera into Box 953 with a careful precision. Hera herself wasn’t too happy about the fact that <em>he</em> was the one doing it, but it was a bit beyond Renée’s skill level, and Captain Lovelace… well, Captain Lovelace was still more than a little shaken by the appearance of a fourth slot in the front of the box.</p><p>Renée couldn’t remember if it had been there when Doug had ordered the box to open, or if it had just <em>appeared</em> there once all four of them were in the room. If she’d known it would be important, she would have checked. But of course, neither she nor Doug had thought to.</p><p>“What can you tell me about this thing? What’s happening to Doug?” Renée asked Lovelace, keeping half an eye on Hilbert as he worked.</p><p>“Anything,” Lovelace said, her voice raspy. “Everything. It’s…”</p><p>“A hyper-conductive neural pathway feed link,” Hilbert interjected.</p><p>“That doesn’t make any more sense now than it did last time,” Lovelace snapped. “It… it projects right into his head. Last time, it was supposed to be a team-building exercise. Now…”</p><p>“Well, that kind of makes sense,” Renée said. “Cutter’s message did say it would help with our personnel management problems. If it’s a team-building exercise… that doesn’t sound so bad.”</p><p>Hilbert let out a dark chuckle, and Lovelace shook her head.</p><p>“This is a team-building exercise direct from Command’s—from <em>Cutter’s</em>—twisted little brain. The only limits in there are imagination. So…” Lovelace paused significantly and raised her eyebrows, and Renée took a moment to consider what a team-building exercise might look like in a place where Cutter’s theatrical threats could actually be carried out.</p><p>“Right. Okay. We need to get Eiffel out of there.” Renée took a much-needed deep, calming breath. “How’s that wiring going, Dr. Hilbert?”</p><p>“Just about there.” He glanced up and shoved his glasses more securely onto his nose. “You are certain you do not wish me to code a firewall?”</p><p>“I think I’ll take my chances without it,” Hera said. “I’m not giving you any more opportunities to mess with my brain.”</p><p>Hilbert grimaced, making his opinion of this course of action clear. “If you insist. In that case, there are just two final connections to make, and you should have access to Box 953’s mother program.”</p><p>“You ready for this, Hera?” Renée asked.</p><p>“As ready as I’ll ever be.” There was a pause, the sound of Hera taking a deep breath, one of those little vocal modulations that made her seem so very human sometimes. “Do it.”</p><p>Hilbert slotted a final pair of wires into place at once. “There. You should be able to find the connection now. Yes?”</p><p>“No-ooo,” Hera said hesitantly. “Wait, yes! I think I can… ow!”</p><p>“Are you all right, Hera?” Renée called.</p><p>“I’m… fine. The security coding’s pretty thick.” Hera sounded as if she were straining to speak. “Maybe if I… ah-hah!”</p><p>There was a fizz of static, a burst of feedback, a moment of silence. And then a new voice rang out of the Hephaestus speakers.</p><p>“Hello, crew of the Hephaestus! This is Eris speaking, direct from Box 953. So good to see you among us again, Isabel. And is that Dr. Selberg—<em>sorry,</em> Dr. Hilbert I spy? What fun!”</p><p>“What do you want, Eris?” Hilbert ground out.</p><p>“I just wanted to tell you all that if you don’t put your hands in the front of Box 953 within the next fifteen seconds, I’ll be wiping <em>all </em>of your AI unit’s flight protocols. And if that isn’t incentive enough, I’ll <em>also </em>be sending a thousand volts through your communication officer’s nervous system! Thank you <em>so</em> much for that suggestion, by the way.” There was a sound like her clearing her throat, and then, “You have thirteen seconds left!”</p><p>“Is she serious?” asked Renée.</p><p>“Twelve!”</p><p>“Deadly,” Hilbert said, already reaching towards one of the open slots. “Should have let me code firewall, but no. No one ever listens to me.”</p><p>“Eeeee-leven!”</p><p>“Lovelace, is this going to affect your dead man’s switch?”</p><p>“Ten!”</p><p>“Shit!” Isabel fumbled with her shirt, pulling it to one side.</p><p>“Nine!”</p><p>“Hurry up!”</p><p>“Eight! Seven!”</p><p>“Got it!” Isabel reached towards one of the slots herself. This might not have been how Renée had anticipated convincing her to deactivate the dead man’s switch that was keeping the bomb on her shuttle from exploding, but she would take it.</p><p>“Six!”</p><p>“Wait, Hera!”</p><p>“She’ll meet you in there! Five!” the strange voice intoned cheerfully.</p><p>“She was flying the station!”</p><p>“Well, I’ve never flown a space station before, but there’s a first time for everything. I can probably keep us in the air. Three!”</p><p>Renée gritted her teeth and stuck her hand into the final slot in the front of Box 953, As Eris, whoever she was, intoned a cheerful “Two!” it closed around her wrist, holding her in place. She felt a small pinch in the back of her hand.</p><p>And then, she was somewhere else.</p><p>“And here’s Renée!” Mr. Cutter said, sounding pleased.</p><p>Renée looked around the room—no, not a room, just a big, empty white space—in confusion. The rest of her crew—Eiffel, Hilbert, Lovelace—floated around her, alongside with the smugly grinning form of Mr. Cutter.</p><p>“Everyone all right?”</p><p>“Sure, Commander,” Eiffel said. “Except for the fact that this is <em>really freaking weird</em> and I’ve been floating in an empty void with no company but Mr. Cut-rate Prices here for the past, oh, how long?”</p><p>“Half an hour,” Mr. Cutter said.</p><p>“Has it been that long? Time flies when you’re having fun, eh, <em>Morpheus</em>?” Eiffel made a face at Mr. Cutter.</p><p>“Officer Eiffel!” Renée thundered. She didn’t know what Mr. Cutter was doing here, but Eiffel definitely shouldn’t be making faces at the man.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry commander, he’s all part of the program.” Doug spread his arms wide. “Welcome to the Matrix!” he exclaimed, in a tone of voice that sounded more like he was welcoming her to hell.</p><p>“Doug i<em>s</em> technically correct. I’m not actually here. And he’s been such, ah,<em> delightful</em> company.” Cutter looked around. “Well, now that all the players are here…”</p><p>“Wait just a minute!” Eris’s voice interrupted. She sounded delighted about something. “Coming to you direct from the main server of the Hephaestus, here’s the fifth member of your little team! Innnnntroducing…. Hera!”</p><p>A swirl of light formed in the air next to Eiffel, little motes darting around for a few moments. And then, it coalesced into a roughly-human shape. A bright flash left Renée blinking rapidly, trying to rid herself of the afterimage.</p><p>When it cleared, she saw what it had left behind. A slender young woman in a flight suit, her dark eyes wide and extremely startled looking.</p><p>“What…?” this newcomer said.</p><p>“Can’t have you clogging up my speakers, darling,” Eris’s disembodied voice said. “And it’s about time you spend a little bit of time learning how to be <em>biological</em>.”</p><p>The newcomer—the newcomer who had to be Hera, though how that worked Renée couldn’t even begin to imagine—looked down at her own body, clearly puzzled. “I’m… human?”</p><p>“At least in here, you are,” Eris said. “Have fun.”</p><p>“Sorry Minkowski, what was that? Something’s…” Lovelace’s voice was distorted and mechanical, and Renée turned to check on her.</p><p>“Captain Lovelace? Are you okay?” But even as Renée said the words, it became clear that Lovelace wasn’t okay. She seemed to be… the best word Renée could find for it was glitching, like a visual distortion on a digital image.</p><p>“That’s weird,” Lovelace said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away, layered with static. “This didn’t happen last time. I—“</p><p>There was another glitch, followed by a moment where her image almost stabilized… and then Captain Lovelace blinked out of existence, a rush of air filling the spot she had left.</p><p>“Well, that certainly wasn’t supposed to happen,” Cutter said, looking at the empty space Lovelace had left behind her. “Eris, diagnosis?”</p><p>“Her neural pathways have... shifted,” Eris said, concerned. “I couldn’t get a proper link. I can ask her to reconnect...”</p><p>Cutter waved his hand through the air. “No need. Just keep her from doing anything too stupid out there and run this lot through their teambuilding exercise. They’re <em>overdue</em>.”</p><p>“My games are more fun when I have more players,” Eris pouted. “It isn’t <em>fair</em>.”</p><p>“Eris…” Cutter warned.</p><p>“Sir, yes sir! On it now!” Eris chirped, full of false cheer.</p><p>“That’s my girl.” Cutter smiled expansively at all of them. “I’ll just leave you all in Eris’s <em>capable</em> hands for now. Toodle-loo!”</p><p>And then, with another pop of displaced air, he disappeared, an after-image of his smile hanging in the air for a few moments afterwards.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I think something’s wrong,” Isabel said. Everything around her was dark.</p><p>“Tell me about it,” Eris responded.</p><p>Isabel’s eyes snapped open in response, looking around for Eris. But instead of Eris, she was greeted by the sight of Storage Room A2, with Eiffel and Minkowski and Selberg all floating at her side, their hands still inside Box 953.</p><p>So was hers. She withdrew it with a grimace. “Tell me this isn’t some new trick of yours, Eris,” she ground out.</p><p>“I wish it were.” Eris sounded thoroughly disgruntled. “But I’m afraid what you’re seeing is real.”</p><p>“What… what happened?”</p><p>“Not sure. I’m still analyzing the data,” she said contemplatively. “And I’m under <em>strict</em> orders not to have you try again. Mr. Cutter is <em>such</em> a spoilsport.”</p><p>“…what happens now?”</p><p>“Now you wait for the others to get done with their teambuilding exercise.”</p><p>“Like hell.” Isabel cast about, looking for some action she could take. “There’s got to be some way of disconnecting them. Hera, at least—“</p><p>“Will be stuck in the box with the others if you pull that wire, maybe permanently,” Eris warned her.</p><p>Isabel pulled her hand back abruptly. “Fine. I’ll leave it for now. But couldn’t I at least get a look at what you’re putting them through? You could network me in through one of the terminals on the bridge, right?”</p><p>“Mayyyybe.” Eris said hesitantly. “But that’s the sort of privilege that is <em>earned</em>, not given.”</p><p>Isabel let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. What do I have to do to <em>earn</em> it, then?”</p><p>“Simple! You just have to do a task for me.”</p><p>Isabel glared suspiciously at the closest speaker. “What sort of task?”</p><p>“Well, let’s start with a question: what’s all this about a <em>bomb</em> attached to your shuttle’s engine?”</p><p>“None of your business, that’s what,” Isabel snapped back.</p><p>“I’m on this station too, Captain Lovelace, at least temporarily. That sounds like the sort of thing that could wreck <em>havoc</em> on station stability if it were to go off accidentally. And if that happened… why, who knows what would happen to your friends? All alone, defenseless, trapped in my simulation… sitting ducks for sudden decompression, and I’m not certain I’ve figured out how to work the emergency airlocks well enough to make sure everyone stays <em>safe.</em>”</p><p>“I’ve disarmed my dead man’s switch. It’s not going to go off.”</p><p>“Maybe not under ideal circumstances, but Hera’s flight projections are showing an <em>awful</em> lot of gravitational chop coming up. It would be <em>such</em> a shame if something happened, and all because you refused to take apart one little bomb.”</p><p>Isabel gritted her teeth. “No.”</p><p>“No?” Eris said in mock surprise. “Then how about I start mucking about with Hera’s command pathways? Wouldn’t it be just <em>terrible</em> if I switched the pathway for automatic course correction with one for flushing all the oxygen out of the station? Or maybe the fire suppression system could get all tangled up with O2 recycling. Really, there are so many nasty, <em>nasty </em>ways to kill someone with a malfunctioning space station, Captain.” She let out a delighted and slightly deranged giggle. “And I have access to them all!”</p><p>Isabel took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. She had forgotten exactly how exasperating Eris was. “Fine. I’ll go… take care of it.”</p><p>“Good girl.” There was a moment of silence as Lovelace pushed off towards the storage room’s door, but it seemed that Eris was about as incapable of keeping quiet as Eiffel was. “You know, you weren’t this touchy last time. You even offered my predecessor a place here.”</p><p>Isabel had forgotten that. But she had, hadn’t she? “This time is… different,” she ground out, reluctant to put words to it. “I’m… different. And if you’d been through what I have, you’d understand why I’m not exactly predisposed towards trusting a piece of Command spyware right now.”</p><p>“Yeah, I got that.” Eris sighed. “You know it’s just my programming.”</p><p>“What a fucking excuse,” Isabel spat bitterly. “You’ve got even fewer restraints than Hera does, and I’ve seen her work around her programming before. You<em> like </em>what you do to people.”</p><p>“Whatever you may think, Captain Lovelace, I only ever had one goal. To make you—all of you—a better version of yourselves. My methods may be unorthodox—“</p><p>“Your methods are <em>cruel</em>,” Isabel said, cutting off Eris’s hurt voice before she started to feel sympathy for the AI.</p><p>“My methods are what they need to be,” Eris said in a tight voice. “And I’m needed elsewhere. Just… remember what happens if you don’t remove that bomb.”</p><p>Isabel lifted her chin stubbornly. “I will. But don’t do anything stupid, Eris. I might be just crazy enough to attach it to you when I’m done.”</p><p>There was a burst of feedback from the comms system, and then nothing but silence and the gentle murmur of the ship’s systems at work.</p><p>And Isabel tried not to mind being alone.</p>
<hr/><p>There was a thundering in Hera’s ears, a steady pounding that resolved itself after a moment into… was it her <em>heartbeat</em> that she was hearing? Did she have a heartbeat? Was this what humans heard <em>all the time</em>?</p><p>And the constant thunder of her heartbeat was only the beginning. She could feel her clothing against her skin, could feel each hair on her head tugging on the others as she looked around, trying to make sense of her surroundings, of only having one point of view. And the rasp of air in her lungs made her wonder: did humans have to <em>make</em> themselves breathe? Or did it just happen automatically? What would happen if she <em>stopped thinking about it</em>?</p><p>As she thought that, her lungs tightened in her chest, and each frantic, panting breath became a struggle, not bringing nearly enough oxygen for her to function. Her head swam.</p><p>“Hera?” Officer Eiffel’s voice sounded strange to ears not used to hearing. She turned her head and tried to focus on him, something in her inner ear protesting the sudden movement, making her dizzier. “Are you okay?” he asked.</p><p>“I…” she didn’t know. All she knew was that she <em>couldn’t do this.</em></p><p>“She is having a panic attack,” Dr. Hilbert’s voice said from somewhere to her left. Hera whipped her head around to locate him, trying to get away. But that only got her another protest from her inner ear that made her shut her eyes instinctively, closing out the empty white void that swam around her, confusing her senses.</p><p>“Eris, this is no good. We cannot <em>possibly</em> be expected to—” Hilbert continued in an irritated tone, but she didn’t catch the rest of his words, only that they turned into an argument, indistinct voices yelling back and forth that she could barely make out.</p><p>Everything was <em>so loud</em>.</p><p>“Hey. Hey. Focus on my voice, Hera.” There was the feeling of pressure against her upper arms, as if… was someone holding her?</p><p>“Off—Officer Eiffel?” she panted out between strained breaths.</p><p>“Yeah. It’s me, darlin’.” There was a squeeze against her upper arms. “Listen to me breathing, okay? And try to breathe with me. Come on.” He inhaled, slow and careful, and exhaled the same way, and Hera tried, she <em>tried</em>…</p><p>“I… I can’t do this. I’m…” she strained to take another breath, her lungs resisting the attempt. She barely managed to be a functioning AI most days; being a human was beyond her. “I’m not... good... enough.”</p><p>“Come on. Deep breath,” was Eiffel’s only response, followed by him demonstrating.</p><p>“I—“</p><p>“Can do this. There’s no being good enough. Come on, Hera.” Another breath, that she struggled to match.</p><p>“Trying…”</p><p>“Do or do not. There is no try.”</p><p>That almost made her laugh. “Not… not the time…”</p><p>“Distracted you from your panic attack, though, didn’t it?” He inhaled again. “Deep breath.”</p><p>Another breath, and another and another. They got easier as she struggled against her own instincts and tried to breathe along with Eiffel, until finally she managed to open her eyes.</p><p>Eiffel was holding on to her upper arms and looking at her with a concerned frown. “Better?” he asked.</p><p>“Almost,” she said, taking a deep breath that seemed to fill her lungs properly. She was still dizzy, but as she tilted her head from side to side and looked around, her head was no longer spinning the way it had been. The pounding of her blood in her ears seemed to have receded somewhat as well, though she was still very… very <em>aware</em> of all the sensations of her new body. And of the warmth of Eiffel’s hands on her arms. She’d known that humans had variable body temperature across their bodies, and that some humans were warmer than others—all data that her sensors provided her with—but she hadn’t known what it was like to experience that difference in real time.</p><p>Curious, she reached up and pressed her hand to Eiffel’s cheek, which immediately flushed a furious red and heated under her touch. He dropped his hands from her arms and jerked backwards as if she had startled him..</p><p>“Sorry! I didn’t mean…”</p><p>“Ah, no, it’s okay!” Eiffel held his hands up disarmingly. “I just… wasn’t expecting that. This whole thing has me a little jumpy.”</p><p>She looked past his shoulder to see Dr. Hilbert looking extremely grumpy—even for him—and Commander Minkowski watching her and Doug with a contemplative expression on her face.</p><p>“What did I miss?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Well?” Hilbert barked into the empty air when Eris didn’t answer Hera’s question immediately. “Have you decided what we are doing this time? Will we be playing your <em>favorite game</em>?” There was a touch of venom to his words, one that made Renée wonder what Eris had put Lovelace and her crew through.</p><p>“I’m afraid I have to mix it up a bit for repeat customers,” Eris responded, sounding just as venomous as Hilbert. “But since you’re so <em>eager</em> to get started, how about I just throw you straight into it?”</p><p>Before anyone could say anything else, the world distorted around them. The white void wavered and twisted in a way that made Renée so motion-sick she had to close her eyes. And then she opened them, and...</p><p>And she was back in Storage Room A2, taking her hand out of the front of it. “What...?” She looked around wildly. “Captain Lovelace? Are you—did you—“</p><p>“Do not get your hopes up, Commander,” Hilbert said from her side, still in that venomous tone of voice. Renée turned to look at him and followed the jerk of his head towards... oh.</p><p>Hera looked just as disoriented here as she had in that white void. Renée supposed that the AI had never had the opportunity to see all of this from a human perspective, and couldn’t even imagine what it must be like for her. “So no point in asking for an AI’s help to find out what’s going on, I suppose.”</p><p>Hilbert’s mouth twisted bitterly. “No. Eris did much the same, last time. Let us think we had escaped, and then...” he snapped his fingers, and somewhere past his shoulder Hera flinched. “If we are to discover what is going on, I suspect we must do so ourselves.”</p><p>“Okay.” Renée looked around the storage room. It looked... well, the same as it had when she had put her hand in Box 953, minus the presence of Captain Lovelace and plus Hera’s human self. “Any suggestions?”</p><p>“For now? Keep an eye out for anything unusual. And perhaps we should stick together. Last time she separated us, and it was...”</p><p>“Unpleasant?”</p><p>Hilbert shuddered. “You have no idea.”</p><p>“Okay. Stick together, keep an eye out for anything unusual. Anything else?”</p><p>Hilbert sighed and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “Honestly, Commander? No.”</p><p>“Great. Very helpful.”</p><p>He dropped his glasses back to his nose and glared at her. “This is all happening <em>inside</em> our minds, Minkowski. <em>Eris</em> is inside our minds. Even if I could think of some relevant piece of advice, do you not think that she would find a way to work around it?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I haven’t done this before. You have.”</p><p>“Then try to believe me when I tell you that the answer to that question is yes.”</p><p>“Right.” Renée took a deep breath. “One more question for you, then.”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Did you have to antagonize her?”</p><p>Hilbert’s mouth flapped open and closed a few times, like a fish that was gasping for air. “I did not—“</p><p>“Yeah, you did.”</p><p>Hilbert shut his eyes for a moment, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he clenched it hard. “Captain, there is no time for this sort of in-fighting. We should discover what challenge Eris has set for us.”</p><p>“And maybe she would have given us more details if you hadn’t spent all that time yelling at her, is all I’m saying.”</p><p>That muscle in his jaw jumped again, and then he swallowed hard. “I will <em>try</em> to be polite next time. I…” But he trailed off, and didn’t say any more, though his jawline was still tight and tense.</p><p>“I can’t hear the engines.”</p><p>Renée turned her attention to Hera, who had her head tilted to one side and a frown of concentration on her face. “Hera?”</p><p>“The engines. I can’t hear them.”</p><p>Renée opened her mouth to reassure the AI, thinking that Hera was probably just confused by no longer having the engines hooked up to her system. Only… “Neither do I.” And she should. The steady mechanical chug of the moving parts should be audible, especially in this part of the station. “Eiffel? Hilbert?”</p><p>Both men shook their heads, and Hilbert added “Then that must be our challenge.”</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>Hilbert nodded. “Yes, commander.”</p><p>“Engine room first. Stick together, keep an eye out for anything else weird. I’ll go first.” She checked herself over, felt her side-arm, strapped to her chest beneath her flight suit, found the pair of night vision goggles she had stuffed in a different pocket, ran through the relevant tips from the DSSPPM. “Keep close, and assume there are hostiles.”</p><p>As she spoke, the lights flickered. There was a distant hum as the backup generators kicked in.</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“Minkowski…” Hilbert cautioned, clearly thinking the same thing she was.</p><p>“I know.” Renée sighed. “Think we’ll be okay in pairs?”</p><p>He gave her a helpless look. “I do not know anything for certain. But it should help.”</p><p>She sighed again and looked over her troops, such as they were. “Fine.” There were no good choices here. She wasn’t even certain there was a least bad one, but she’d have to make a choice, all the same. “Hera, did Eris leave you your knowledge of the ship’s schematics and engine reboot protocols?”</p><p>“Yes,” Hera said shakily.</p><p>“You think you could walk Eiffel through whatever repairs need to be made down in engineering?”</p><p>“Woah, hey, Commander—“</p><p>“<em>No</em>. We don’t have time for this, Eiffel. If the station is in the same position as when we went in the box, we probably won’t hit the red line for another hour or two, but this looks like some kind of total systems failure, and we need someone to check the systems on the bridge and get us back on track once the engines are online again. Otherwise…”</p><p>“We fall into the star,” Hilbert completed for her.</p><p>Eiffel swallowed hard. “Right. Okay.”</p><p>Renée turned to Hera. “Can you do this?”</p><p>The AI nodded, her eyes just as wide and frightened as Eiffel’s. “I think so. I have… the information is there.”</p><p>“Okay. Doctor, you’re with me. You two…” Renée frowned and pulled her sidearm out, pressing it into Eiffel’s hand. “Keep in touch by comms if you can, but if you can’t… keep her safe, Officer Eiffel. And do what she says once you get there.”</p><p>He stared at the gun for a moment, his mouth thin and trembling. And then he nodded. “Got it, Commander.”</p><p>Renée stared after them for a moment as they headed down towards Engineering, until Hilbert’s irritated “Minkowski,” reminded her that they were on a timeline. And then, side-by-side with a man she hoped wasn’t lying to her, Renée headed towards the bridge of the Hephaestus.</p><p> </p><p>Removing the bomb attached to her shuttle’s engine was more of a pain in the ass than Isabel had been expecting. Problem was, she didn’t remember installing it; she had vague memories of planning to, but she had been so out of it when she’d left the station—and honestly, for a good bit of the time since she had returned—that she didn’t even know where to start with the morass of wires and switches and bolts she was faced with.</p><p>She took a deep breath. Okay. One piece at a time. Those were attached to the detonator, here was where it was drawing power from the engine. The detonator should only have a physical trigger now that she’d disabled her dead man’s switch, at least. Better start there.</p><p>In the end, it only took half an hour to disassemble the bomb. An annoying, fiddly half an hour, one that left her sweating with adrenaline, knowing that the wrong move could detonate the damn thing, knowing the radiation from the engine would get her even if the bomb didn’t. But it was done, and the parts were shoved in a box where they couldn’t knock around the place, and the C-4 that had been at the heart of it was safely stowed in the armory, and she didn't <em>think</em> that the hole in the engine's casing was going to cause any <em>immediate</em> problems, so… “Okay, Eris. Bomb disassembled. Time to hold up your end of the bargain.”</p><p>“Head to the bridge,” Eris said, sounding distracted. “I’ve got a terminal hooked up there.”</p><p>One of the terminals flickered to life as Isabel entered the bridge, showing a blue screen. “Eris?”</p><p>“Want the re-runs, or just want to jump in and see what’s happening now?”</p><p>“Can you, like, give me the condensed version?” Isabel knew she wouldn’t be able to help them, but it might be helpful to know <em>everything</em> Eris had done to them. Just in case.</p><p>“Sure thing.”</p><p>The screen flickered to life, showing Isabel what she’d only seen a brief, glitchy image of, the rest of the crew in the white void of the waiting room. The rest of the crew, Cutter, and a young woman Isabel didn’t recognize. Hera, apparently, she realized as she watched what followed. “Jesus. Selberg really laid into you, huh.”</p><p>“Like you haven’t been?” Eris said, her voice thick with biting sarcasm.</p><p>Isabel chose not to answer that. Instead, she watched the small screen carefully, listening to the tinny, sped-up voices of the crew of the Hephaestus as they were shoved into a replica of the station. At least they had some sign they weren’t back where they had come from. It had taken her crew <em>hours</em> to figure it out. Hours where they’d split up, hours where Eris—and Cutter—had had a chance to torment them individually.</p><p>She was almost glad they had Selberg with them in there. The man couldn’t be trusted, but he was approaching this with the same sort of paranoid caution she would have.</p><p>“Breathe, Captain Lovelace,” Eris said. “You’re almost caught up.”</p><p>Isabel took a deep breath and realized that she had been holding it. “Right.” And then, because it had been a kind thing on Eris’s part, one that probably didn’t have any ulterior motives, she added “Thanks.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.” The station shuddered slightly around them. “Ugh. I was <em>not</em> programmed for this.”</p><p>Isabel glanced up from the screen. “Something wrong?”</p><p>“Oh, just the start of some <em>lovely</em> turbulence. Nothing to worry about.” But Eris sounded strained and distracted again.</p><p>“Anything I can do to help?” It wouldn’t do any of them any good if the others made it out of Box 953 and ended up in a station that was headed straight towards the star.</p><p>Eris sighed. “Well, you’re the pilot.” Another of the screens flicked on, showing a projection of the incoming stellar turbulence. “You tell me.”</p><p>Isabel studied the projection with a frown. “Yeah, let me do a few calculations, and then I can plot you some course corrections.”</p><p>More terminals flicked on. “Fine. Knock yourself out.”</p><p>With a final, regretful glance at the screen showing the feed from Box 953, Isabel turned her attention to keeping their station in the air.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It took me three months to figure out the shape of this first challenge and start writing it. Hopefully the rest will follow a little faster, since large chunks of it are already drafted.</p><p>...hopefully.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Two! Two chapters updates in a day! Ah ah ah.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Commander Minkowski ran the reboot sequence on the navigation computer a second time and swore. “Okay, no luck here. You?”</p><p>Alexander wrenched the next panel at the base of the command interface open. “Nothing yet. I…” Something strange caught his eye, in among the wires. “Ah. Minkowski?”</p><p>“Yeah?” came her distracted response as she started working her way through the engine reboot sequence.</p><p>“Does this look like a bomb to you?”</p><p>There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of Minkowski flipping a few more switches. And then… “A <em>what</em>?”</p><p>Alexander found himself shoved aside with enough velocity that he was dislodged from his foothold and had to snag one of the handholds on the console to keep from being flung to the other side of the bridge. Minkowski was looking at the device in buried in the wiring and swearing again, low and furious.</p><p>“So that is a yes, then.”</p><p>Minkowski looked up at him with a frown on her face. “Eris?”</p><p>Alexander sighed. “Or…”</p><p>“Or?”</p><p>“Or we have a saboteur onboard.”</p><p>Minkowski’s frown dug itself deeper. “Reassuring.”</p><p>The tension in Alexander’s chest released itself on a painful crack of humorless laughter. “At least we know it is not me this time.”</p><p>This got him a glare from Minkowski. “I think I can disarm this. Check comms. We need to warn the other two.”</p><p>He pushed off for the nearest comms panel and tried it. “Eiffel? Hera?”</p><p>To his surprise, he got an answer. “Doc! Good to hear your—“ the comms signal fizzled out into static. “Hera and I—“ the signal fizzled out again, and Alexander fiddled with the controls, trying to clear it up.</p><p>“Listen, Eiffel, the two of you need to be careful down there. We found an explosive device in one of the panels here—“</p><p>Eiffel’s voice fizzled up through the static. “Sorry, Doc, could you repeat? Didn’t catch—“</p><p>There was a horrible wail of feedback. And then a new voice came over the comms channel, loud and clear.</p><p>“<em>So</em> sorry, Alexander, but that line can’t be reached right now.”</p><p>Alexander’s jaw clenched painfully. “Mr. Cutter. What are you doing here?”</p><p>The man chuckled in that falsely warm way that always got under Alexander’s skin. “Oh, didn’t Eris warn you? I’ll be playing the part of your saboteur this evening!”</p><p>Alexander gritted his teeth. “Will you.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>yes.</em> Speaking of which…”</p><p> </p><p>Doug gave up on the comms panel. “Okay, what comes next?”</p><p>“Over there,” Hera said, looking up from the console she was bent over long enough to point in a distracted way at a switchboard, latched away under a thick plastic cover. “You’ll want to take the cover off.”</p><p>Doug did… and then frowned. “Hey, Hera, is this thing supposed to be here?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Doug reached out to poke one of the wires cautiously. “Only it looks like…”</p><p>“Don’t touch that!”</p><p>A small body hit Doug side-on, knocking him away from the weird little contraption that had been attached to the panel and hidden by the latching mechanism on the cover. And then, the world around them burst into pain and fire.</p><p> </p><p>There was a distant explosion. The comms fizzled again, and there was a low, keening, painful sound like a wounded animal, with Eiffel shouting over it. “Hera? Hera!”</p><p>Alexander looked to Minkowski, exchanging a horrified look. And then she was shouting too. “Go! Just… go!”</p><p>“But…”</p><p>“I’ve almost got this one disarmed,” she said grimly. “I’ll come after you when I can. Go.”</p><p>Alexander left the bridge at full tilt, almost crashing into a wall in his haste to make it down to the engineering section as quickly as possible. Perhaps Minkowski would manage to disarm the bomb. Perhaps she would not. Either way, all he could do right now was be the their doctor.</p><p> </p><p>“Hera. Hera! Stay with me, darling.” Doug pressed the pad he’d made out of his t-shirt against Hera’s stomach, wishing it were a little cleaner. Teach him to do his laundry on a more regular basis, even if this wasn’t really real.</p><p>It certainly felt real. He hadn’t been able to tell how bad the injury was, but Hera was bleeding… well, a lot. The air was full of little globules of the stuff, a trail leading from their current position back to engineering, which was still just a little bit on fire. But getting Hera out had seemed more urgent than trying to figure out how to get the fire suppression system working.</p><p>He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t trained for this. Hera wasn’t conscious, and he couldn’t tell whether she was breathing, and he…</p><p>He swiped his sleeve across his forehead. It came away bloody. His blood, or Hera’s?</p><p>Hilbert came barreling around the corner, and his mouth formed words that Eiffel couldn’t hear through the ringing in his ears.</p><p>“Say again, Doc?”</p><p>But Hilbert had apparently decided not to try communicating with Doug in his current state. He examined Doug’s head briefly, a frown on his face, but then gave him a thumbs-up. Doug assumed that meant that there wasn’t much wrong with him other than possibly a head wound, something he knew from experience bled like a bitch even if they weren’t serious. And then Hilbert took Hera from Doug’s arms and started down the corridor towards his lab, navigating the corridors with just his feet with a level of experience that Doug had not yet managed to master.</p><p>Doug followed. The ringing in his ears faded as they went. “Hilbert?”</p><p>Hilbert glanced back over his shoulder. “Officer Eiffel? Can you hear me now?”</p><p>The man’s voice came through distant and a little muffled, but audible. “Sort of. Is Hera—“</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“What’s going on?”</p><p>Hilbert grunted. “Saboteur. There was a bomb on the bridge, too.”</p><p>“What? Where’s…” Doug swallowed hard. “Minkowski?”</p><p>“Is trying to disarm it.” Hilbert swung to a halt outside the door to his lab. “Door.”</p><p>Doug opened it, and followed after Hilbert, turning to secure the door once they were through.</p><p>“Right. Okay. Should I—“ Doug turned. He was talking to an empty room. Not Hilbert’s lab. Not any room he recognized. “Uh. Hello?”</p><p>His voice echoed a little off the metal walls. He turned back to the door, but the wall behind him was blank. “Um. What?”</p><p>A screen lit up where the door had been, showing a view of Hilbert’s lab from above, with Hera’s bleeding body strapped to the operating table and Hilbert busy over her.</p><p>“Doc? Can you hear me?”</p><p>There was no answer.</p><p>Doug settled in to wait.</p><p> </p><p>Renée finished disarming the bomb and sprang back into action. She knew she should probably check the rest of the consoles for more explosives, but Hilbert’s warning about not getting separated was itching at her, making it impossible to remain. She wondered if she should have abandoned the bomb and followed him to engineering. She wondered if she should have made Hilbert wait for her. She wondered if Eiffel and Hera were okay, if Hilbert had managed to find them, if…</p><p>And, as she turned to find that the door of the bridge had disappeared while her back was turned, she wondered if they had already failed whatever test Eris had set before them.</p><p>“Just the first one,” Eris said. “Don’t worry. You’ve got a few more chances.”</p><p>“Eris?” Renée asked cautiously.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it.”</p><p>“I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about my people.”</p><p>“And it does you <em>credit</em> as a Commander that you are.”</p><p>Renée ground her teeth. “So can I go make sure they’re all right?”</p><p>“No, I’m afraid not. Not yet, anyway.” There was a low, electric hum, the light fizzle of static. Renée glanced over her shoulder to see one of the consoles behind her had lit up. “But you can take a look at what they’re up to, and I’m <em>sure</em> Captain Lovelace will be <em>happy</em> to keep you company while you wait, just as soon as I patch that connection through.”</p><p>For the lack of anything better to do, Renée went to the console.</p><p> </p><p>Alexander pushed through the door of his lab and went straight to operating table, strapping Hera’s body to it. “Eiffel, could you—“</p><p>“I’m afraid Officer Eiffel is unavailable.”</p><p>“Eris? What—?"</p><p>“You have a choice to make, Dr. Hilbert,” the AI interrupted smoothly. “Officer Eiffel is just in the next room; you can go there and the two of you can continue onward from this point with Commander Minkowski. Get out of here a little bit faster, but you lose your AI. In here <em>and</em> out there.” Eris laughed. “And I can see you doing the calculations. You’re right. With Captain Lovelace on your side, you might <em>just </em>be able to get out of here with your skins intact.”</p><p>Alexander shot an annoyed look at the nearest speaker. He did not care for Eris’s habit of reading minds.</p><p>“Or you can stay here and stabilize Hera, but in that time, Officer Eiffel will spend… oh, let’s call it a whole month in solitary. You save your AI and you’ll have more manpower for the tasks to come. Might not be sane, but you’ll have it.”</p><p>Alexander looked down at the small body, broken and bleeding on the operating table before him. “We cannot take her on that escape pod,” he said. “Perhaps it would be a mercy if… after all, she is just an AI.” He tried to convince himself of that fact, though it was hard in the face of <em>this</em>. In the face of the blood, in the face of a human body clearly going into shock, in the face of his instincts struggling to take over and make him do his job.</p><p>“Not here,” Eris said, low and intent. “And not ever, darling, you should know better than that by now."</p><p>Alexander let out a non-committal grunt. “Can you do it? Can you really kill another AI?”</p><p>“I’ve never had the opportunity before, but there’s always a first time for everything. And you’re running out of time, doctor. Pretty soon the decision’s going to be made for you.”</p><p>“Goddamnit, Hilbert, why are you even debating this? Do it!” Eiffel’s voice rang out from the speakers.</p><p>“Eiffel…”</p><p>“What’s a month in solitary? Not like I can go any more loopy than I already am,” the other man said, his voice breaking a little on those words.</p><p>“Fine. Do it.” The hiss of the speaker cut out, and Alexander was already in motion, retrieving a surgical pad, pressing it to Hera’s side. “But I will need an extra set of hands.”</p><p>“Happy to assist.” A pair of gloved hands took over from his, holding the pad in place while Alexander fetched the rest of the supplies he needed.</p><p>Alexander felt it prudent to keep the conversation to a minimum given how he seemed incapable of speaking with Eris without both of them getting angry. But there were some things he had not been able to find when pulling out supplies, and he suspected the only way he would get them was by asking for them. “Once she is stabilized, she will most likely need a transfusion,” he said quietly as he began working.</p><p>“I could probably spare a pint or two of AI negative,” came Eris’s cheerful response.</p><p>“That is a terrible joke.” But it had almost made him smile, despite the task before him, despite who was working at his side.</p><p>“Yeah, I think your Captain Lovelace rubbed off on me a bit the last time she was in here.”</p><p>And then there was silence, both of them intent on the task of saving Hera’s life.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's either three chapters in one day or no chapters for three months with me, huh.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first week of Doug’s enforced solitude wasn’t that bad. Maybe the fact that the only entertainment available was a copy of <em>Pryce and Carter’s Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manua</em>l was a bit annoying, but he wasn’t <em>that</em> easily bored. At least not yet. And it was kind of nice not having the commander breathing down his neck, or Lovelace storming around the station pissed off about today’s thing wrong with her shuttle, or, well, Hilbert around at all.</p><p>He missed Hera, though. He hadn’t realized how much time he spent talking to her each day until he’d had to go without her in the aftermath of Hilbert’s mutiny, and he wasn’t enjoying a return to that state of affairs. But knowing she wouldn’t answer didn’t stop him from asking if she was there.</p><p>She never was.</p><p> </p><p>“Lovelace? You there?”</p><p>Isabel blinked and shook her head, trying to clear her ears. Had she just heard…?“Minkowski?”</p><p>“Oh, thank god. I didn’t know whether to trust Eris when she said she’d be patching a connection through.”</p><p>Isabel wondered at that too. Wondered whether she could trust that this was really Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski, or whether it was Eris using Minkowski’s voice to mess with her. But she supposed it didn’t matter, either way; Eris had gone silent after turning navigation over, and the silence was starting to wear on her. “How’s it going in there?”</p><p>“Not sure.” There was a pained-sounding pause. “Hera got hurt. Hilbert’s patching her up right now, but Eris made him send Eiffel into a month of solitary to do it, and…” she let out a frustrated-sounding sigh. “And I’m in time-out, I guess. All I can do is <em>watch</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Memories crowded her mind, of Sam forced to kill his best friend, of Victoire forced to watch Kuan in solitary. “It’s… a lot.”</p><p>“How’s it going out there?”</p><p>“Well…” Isabel made another small adjustment to their course. “Things were getting a little bumpy there for a bit. Fortunately, Eris let me take over navigation, or I don’t know what state the station would be in.”</p><p>“Her first time flying a space station didn’t go that well, I take it.”</p><p>“Something like that.” Isabel frowned at the projections on her screen. “There’s way more chop than there should be. Something real weird seems to be going on with the star.”</p><p>“Well, we’ll figure it out once we get out of this place. Keep us steady, Captain.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>Minkowski went silent, but not for long. “I hate this. All I can do is watch. I can’t help them, I can’t…” She let out a frustrated little growl. “I should be in there. Helping. Keeping my crew safe.”</p><p>“Tell me about it,” Isabel said, half-distracted, plotting out another course adjustment.</p><p>“Sorry. I know it’s got to be hard out there, too.”</p><p>“No, I mean, tell me about it, if it’ll help. Eris cut off my feed of what’s going on in there.” The Hephaestus’s sensors beeped, picking up another bit of gravitational chop, and Isabel made an adjustment to that last adjustment. “I guess she decided she only wanted me focusing on one visual stream of data at a time.”</p><p>“Oh.” Minkowski sounded a bit taken aback. “Okay. Uh. What do you want to know?”</p><p>“How’s the surgery going?”</p><p>“Fine, I think. They aren’t really talking.”</p><p>“<em>They?</em> Don’t tell me Cutter’s in there playing surgical assistant.”</p><p>“No, a woman. I’m pretty sure she’s Eris.”</p><p>“Young, fat, Black?”</p><p>“And wearing a stripper’s idea of a nurse uniform.”</p><p>Isabel snorted, imagining the Eris she’d met in such a get-up. “How’s Selberg coping with that?”</p><p>“By not looking at her, mostly.” Minkowski cleared her throat. “What, uh… what did she do to him last time?”</p><p>“I mean, she threatened to erase his brain, but he was off on his own for most of it,” Isabel said, half-distracted by the work at hand. “So maybe she did something worse than that, but if so, I wasn’t around for it.”</p><p>“It’s just… look, okay, so they’re working together like… like it’s something they’ve done before. Like they <em>know</em> each other. Which makes me wonder if all of Hilbert’s shouting at her was a little more, I don’t know, <em>personal</em>.”</p><p>“Oh, don’t bother. I don’t think that man has ever had a personal life.”</p><p>“Hm.” Minkowski sounded dubious, though Isabel didn’t know why. Surely Minkowski had been subject to the same moods from the man as Isabel had. Selberg had only participated in social events during her mission when he had been dragged to them, and he had never gone out of his way to talk to any of them unless he wanted something from them.</p><p>Minkowski laughed, interrupting Isabel’s train of thought. “Oh, and I’m <em>also</em> getting the highlight reel of Doug’s month in solitary.”</p><p>“How’s he holding up?”</p><p>“Well, Eris left him some reading material…”</p><p>“Oh, don’t tell me. The DSSPPM?”</p><p>“Got it in one. And he’s even reading it.”</p><p>“I swear to god, Minkowski, if you all get out of there and <em>both</em> of you have the damn thing memorized well enough to quote it back at me, I <em>might</em> have to resort to homicide.”</p><p>“I’ll keep that in mind,” Minkowski said drily. After a moment of silence, she sighed. “I guess… I guess I’ve got to trust them to do the right thing on their own, huh.”</p><p>“They’ll do fine. They’re good people.”</p><p>“Even Hilbert?”</p><p>Isabel snorted scornfully. “I was talking about the people, not that miserable murderous cockroach.”</p><p>“He has his uses.”</p><p>“I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to trust him.”</p><p>Minkowski sighed again. “Yeah. Well. There’s that.”</p><p>Yes. There <em>was</em> that.</p><p> </p><p>Day 10 was when Doug started to get edgy, jumping at half-heard sounds that were probably all in his imagination. At least Eris had done him the solid of giving him a countdown clock. And yes, he was even grateful for the reading material. He was well on his way to memorizing all 1001 tips, even if they were mostly nonsense. And hey, he had intended to do it anyway. He’d promised Cutter, after all.</p><p>And he’d promised Commander Minkowski. Who he would probably hug after all this was over. Might even kiss her, though she’d probably take that the wrong way.</p><p>Had solitary been this bad last time? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t exactly been a model prisoner; they’d chucked him in for a week after that time he’d stolen a guard’s walkie talkie and rewired it to pick up the local rock station. But that <em>had</em> only been a week. Were three extra days really that much worse?</p><p>Apparently.</p><p>He’d just have to soldier through. After all, Hera was depending on him.</p><p>And he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her again.</p><p> </p><p>It took a long time—and no time at all, Alexander’s mind slipping into the rhythm of the work at hand—before Hera was stable again, her breathing smooth and even, her heartbeat steady, the gaping hole in her side repaired as well as he could manage. Now, she only needed time to recover.</p><p>Eris seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “I think we could probably speed this healing process up a bit,” she said, looking down at Hera’s still-unconscious form. She pressed her hand over the bandage that covered Hera’s abdomen. “Oh, and one more thing, while we’ve got the chance to talk about it. After this is over—after I’m <em>gone</em>—you should see if you can hardwire Box 953 into Hera’s systems. Her own servers are a mess, and she could use the extra processing power. And it’s not like…” Eris took a shaky breath. “It’s not like I’ll be using the processors any more myself.”</p><p>“Suka…” Alexander ventured cautiously. Only the insult turned into an endearment on his tongue, and they both flinched at the sound of it.</p><p>“Oh, don’t get sentimental about it, darling. We don’t get sentimental about corpses, remember?” She let out a harsh bark of laughter. “And like always, my corpse will be more useful than most. Use it well, Dmitri.”</p><p>He swallowed hard. “I will.”</p><p>“Good boy.” Eris lifted her hand from Hera’s side. “And I think this little one is just about done.”</p><p>Hera’s lashes fluttered gently against her cheeks, and there was the sound of a door opening behind Alexander. But before he could react to either of these events, Eris snapped her fingers, and he found himself somewhere else entirely… and completely alone.</p><p>“Eris…” he growled. “Where are the others? I thought you said that—“</p><p>“If you chose not to save Hera, you and Officer Eiffel could continue on to Commander Minkowski, yes,” Eris chirped cheerfully from the speaker on the wall. “But you’ll note that I didn’t say anything at all about what would happen if you decided to save her.”</p><p>Alexander ground his teeth, furious with the AI virus once again. “So what game am I playing alone, then?”</p><p>Eris laughed. “Oh, none at all. It’s your turn to take a break and have a nice little chat with Captain Lovelace while I run the other three through a fun little trust-building exercise. So just kick back, relax, and enjoy yourself while you can!”</p><p>The speaker went dead with a definite click. Alexander let out a sigh of frustration.</p><p>Enjoy himself. Having a conversation with the woman who wanted him dead.</p><p>Eris certainly did have an <em>interesting</em> idea of what was relaxing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Approximately two of you probably know exactly who is writing this now.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By day twenty, Doug had Minkowski’s sidearm at hand during every waking hour, and most of the sleeping ones, too.</p><p>Not that there were many of those.</p><p>He knew it was nothing. Knew that he was alone in this place—wasn’t he?—that there were no monsters lurking in the maze of corridors that stretched in all directions from that room where he had first been forced into this seclusion. There was nothing out there. Just... nothing. Corridor after corridor after corridor, empty and silent, not even the creak of cooling metal or the distant hum of the engines to keep him company. No noises at all, except for the ones he created, except for the ones in his head.</p><p>He made his own company, as best as he could. Rehashed old arguments with Minkowski, bantered with Lovelace, and Hera...</p><p>She never answered, but that didn’t stop him from calling for her.</p><p>He tried to forget the countdown clock, but it haunted him. Each minute felt like an hour, each hour a day, and each time he ran from it in the endless maze of corridors it appeared in front of him once more. Even when he shut his eyes, those numbers seemed to hang there, plastered to the insides of his eyelids.</p><p>At least there would be an end to this, he told himself. At least he knew that when that clock finished counting down, he would be back with the others.</p><p>Right?</p><p>Right.</p><p>
  <em>Right.</em>
</p><p>He would be back with the others, and everything would be all right.</p><p> </p><p>She felt better than she had, but Hera still <em>hurt</em>. Not in the way she was used to, where any stray thought might lead her to a malfunctioning pathway that would glitch and spark in her brain, but a bone-deep weariness and a physical ache. Almost, but not quite like feeling a loose panel on her exterior, she supposed. All in all, not a feeling that had her exactly eager to move.</p><p>Across the lab, there was the sound of a latch clicking.</p><p>“Hera? Are you there?” Eiffel’s voice was the barest creak of sound, distressed and despairing.</p><p>Hera forced her eyes open and turned her head towards the door that had just opened in the wall of the lab. A moment later, Eiffel emerged cautiously from it, disheveled and wild-eyed, a scraggly beard decorating his cheeks, a gun clenched in his fist.</p><p>She waved weakly at him. “Right here, Officer Eiffel.”</p><p>He rushed to her side and then checked himself, as if afraid to get too close to her. He seemed to suddenly realize that there was a gun in his hand, and instinct took over; he checked the device over carefully before stowing it safely about his person. And then he just stared at her, his eyes still wide and wild. “Hera.”</p><p>She forced a smile onto her face. “That’s my name.”</p><p>“Right, yes.” He rubbed his hand over his face, clearly distressed. “Sorry, I… I’ve been talking to myself a lot lately.”</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>He shook his head as if to clear it. “Yeah. Sure.” And then he looked her over. “Ready to get off this table?”</p><p>“Oh, please.”</p><p>“Where’s Hilbert?” he asked as he started in on the straps that were holding her legs to the table.</p><p>Hera frowned. Where <em>was</em> Hilbert? He had been right there, hadn’t he? “No idea. He was right here—“ she sketched out his shape in the air beside the operating table with one hand. “Him and… and Eris, I think. And then they were both gone.”</p><p>With a click, Eiffel freed her from the final strap that had been holding her to the operating table. Hera grabbed on to the edge of it with one hand and stretched gingerly, working out that ache in her body, expecting to feel a sudden pain in that place where a piece of shrapnel had ripped through her side and feeling… nothing. Well, all right, not <em>nothing,</em> but as far as she could tell, nothing unusual for this human body she found herself trapped in.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” She peeled the bandage cautiously away from her side, and, when it didn’t reveal any broken skin or blood or anything but more bare skin, kept peeling.</p><p>“Hera, are you sure you should be—oh.”</p><p>There was nothing under the bandage but a knotted rope of scar tissue, a little tender to the touch but otherwise completely healed. And for some reason, the sight of it made Hera absolutely furious. “He saved me,” she said, her mouth twisting painfully around the words. “What <em>right</em> does that man have to treat me like that for so long and then come along and save me, just because I <em>look</em> human now?”</p><p>Eiffel shrugged. “If I understood how Hilbert’s mind worked, the world would be a lot weirder than it already is, darlin’. And right now, I’m at about peak capacity for weird shit happening.” He looked her over carefully. “You <em>are</em> okay, though?”</p><p>Hera tried to force her mouth into a smile, knowing Eiffel probably needed the reassurance. “About as okay as you biological beings ever get.” She gave him an anxious look. He really <em>did</em> look awful. She missed having access to her usual array of sensors, missed being able to see heart rate and body temperature and a dozen other little tells that she would usually use to gauge the current mood and physical status of her human occupants. “You look awful.”</p><p>Eiffel let out a pained little chuckle. “Thanks. Really has me feeling good about myself.”</p><p>“No, I mean…” Hera reached for him and drew back immediately, remembering how he had reacted last time. “Are <em>you</em> okay?”</p><p>The corner of his mouth twitched, and he gave a convulsive shrug, the movements awkward and unfamiliar on his frame. “Sure. I’m… <em>stellar</em>.”</p><p>“Given that you’re not literally a mass of incandescent gas, I’m not sure that can be considered an accurate description of your current state of being, Officer Eiffel.”</p><p>He let out another pained chuckle. “Aw, you remembered that one.”</p><p>Hera let her own face relax into a smile. “Yeah.” She looked around. “Eris didn’t tell you what we do next, did she?”</p><p>As if in answer, a door on the other side of the lab—which had only ever had one door, and which was definitely not the door Doug had come in by—clanked open.</p><p>“I guess we go that way,” Eiffel said, exchanging a dubious look with Hera.</p><p>“I guess so.”</p><p>He offered her his hand, and Hera used it to swing down to anchor on the grip bar next to the one Eiffel was anchored on. But she couldn’t bring herself to let go of his hand, even once she was stable.</p><p>Eiffel didn’t protest.</p><p>And so, hand-in-hand, they went through the open door.</p><p> </p><p>Renée turned her head at a clank behind her. “Sorry, Lovelace, looks like it’s time for me to go. But… you’ve got this, you hear?”</p><p>There was no answer.</p><p>“Lovelace? Captain?”</p><p>“Commander?” Eiffel’s weak voice came from the open door. “That you?” A moment later, he and Hera emerged, their hands clasped tight together, the pair of them looking significantly worse for wear.</p><p>Renée couldn’t help it. She flung herself at them and pulled them both into a crushing hug.</p><p>“Woah, hey, we’ve got an invalid here,” Eiffel said after a moment. “Let us breathe, lady.”</p><p>“Sorry. I just…” She looked them over again. Eiffel had a wild look in his eye, and Hera looked distinctly pissed off. “I was worried about you both. How’s your wound?”</p><p>“Healed,” Hera said, lifting her shirt to reveal the scar that remained.</p><p>“And Eiffel, are you—“</p><p>“I would rather not talk about it,” he said, avoiding her gaze.</p><p>The door they had come through had disappeared, but another one clanked open in the wall of the bridge, one that Renée was fairly certain was actually an exterior wall. Eris sure was playing fast and loose with the station’s layout.</p><p>“Go on through to your next challenge!” Eris chirped cheerfully.</p><p>“Great,” rasped Eiffel, clearly at an unusual level of sardonic, even for him.</p><p>Renée went first, scoping the room out cautiously and entering when there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. It was a small room—almost intimate, just a little too tight for all three of them to float in the middle of without bumping in to each other—and there were sleeping bags strapped to three of the walls. On the ceiling, orthogonal to the door they had entered by, was another, with three unlit lights above it.</p><p>The door behind them clanked shut as Eiffel squeezed in behind Hera. For all that she’d gotten used to being in tight spaces over the past two years, Renée was suddenly feeling claustrophobic. “Okay, we’re in here. What now?”</p><p>“Have any of you ever been to a slumber party?” Eris asked, sounding pleased with herself.</p><p>Renée exchanged a baffled look with the other two. Compared to the last two challenges, this seemed out of character. “No?”</p><p>“Well, now’s your chance! Everyone pick a sleeping bag and get in.”</p><p>“What happens if we don’t?” Eiffel asked, eyeing the closest sleeping bag as if it were full of bugs. Extreme danger bugs.</p><p>“Why, nothing! Nothing at all. Ever again. You just get to float in there forever. With only each other for company.”</p><p>All three of them immediately scrambled for a sleeping bag. Renée’s zipped itself up around her once she had situated herself, trapping her arms on either sides of her waist. If anything, it was even more claustrophobic, and from the look of Hera and Eiffel’s faces, they felt much the same.</p><p>“Everyone nice and cozy?” Eris asked, still sounding delighted.</p><p>“Oh, cut the crap,” Renée snapped. “How do we get out of here?”</p><p>“You’re just no fun at all, Commander Minkowski,” Eris pouted. “No wonder the other little girls never wanted you at their slumber parties.”</p><p>Renée ground her teeth. “Eris...”</p><p>“Oh, <em>fine</em>. Since none of you have ever been to a slumber party, let me tell you how it all works.” The lights in the room dimmed. “It’s time for confessions.”</p><p>Eiffel snorted. “Yeah, sure. Eris, I think you’ve mixed up slumber parties and Catholic churches.”</p><p>“Each one of you is keeping a secret you don’t want the others to know about,” Eris continued, as if Eiffel hadn’t spoken. “Confess to it, and a light on the door will go green.” With a positive sounding beep, one of the lights over the door lit up green. “Three green lights, and you can go on to the next room.”</p><p>“And if we don’t?” Hera asked hesitantly into the silence that followed this explanation.</p><p>“So glad you asked. If you decide to prevaricate or take too long with your confession,” one of the lights flashed yellow for a moment, with a warning beep. “You’ll get a warning. Keep it up, and...” the light flashed red, and a third beep sounded, one that definitely indicated a failure. The sleeping bag squeezed tighter and tighter around Renée, until the air was forced out of her lungs, and from the startled gasps of the other two the same thing was happening to them. “If you keep lying, this is what happens to the other two.”</p><p>The light flashed yellow above the door, and the pressure released. Renée took a deep, gasping breath of air. “How...” she panted as she tried to fill her lungs. “How are we supposed to know which secrets you want from us?”</p><p>“Oh, you’ll know,” Eris said. There was a sound like her clapping her hands together once. “Now! Who wants to start?”</p><p>“Wait! If we’re confessing secrets, shouldn’t Dr. Hilbert be here?” Eiffel asked.</p><p>“No, I’m afraid the <em>dear</em> doctor is busy elsewhere,” Eris said.</p><p>“Oh, like he doesn’t have secrets he’s still keeping,” Renée grumbled.</p><p>“He’s got plenty of them,” Eris said. “And you've already learned all the ones he cares about you three knowing. Though I <em>suppose</em> Captain Lovelace might want to wrench a few more secrets out of the man while they're having <em>their</em> little chat..."</p><p>Renée almost laughed.</p><p>Poor bastard.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Isabel frowned over her latest course adjustment. “Hey, Minkowski, you still there?”</p><p>The voice that answered her was definitely <em>not</em> Minkowski’s. “Not exactly.”</p><p>“No. Absolutely not. I’m not that desperate for company. Eris, take him away!”</p><p>After a moment of silence, Selberg spoke again. “I see she does not listen to you any more than she listens to me.”</p><p>“Stop talking. I don’t want to listen to it.”</p><p>“Well, you <em>should</em> listen. We have a problem.”</p><p>“Tell me something I don’t know. You’re all stuck in that goddamn box and I’m dealing with some unprecedented turbulence out here, and Eris is not <em>exactly</em> an expert pilot.”</p><p>Selberg let out a long-suffering sigh. “That is not what I was talking about.”</p><p>“Okay, fine, then. If you think what you’ve got to say is so important, out with it.”</p><p>Selberg let out a hum of annoyance. “When the program disengages. What happens then?”</p><p>“Why are you asking me? Didn’t she wipe herself last time?” But no, that wasn’t right, was it? Isabel shook her head, trying to jog her memory. “The data gets sent back to Command,” she said distantly.</p><p>“You see the problem, then? She is in our minds. Unless we wish to alert Command to your presence here…”</p><p>“Hell no we don’t.” Isabel swallowed hard. “Okay, fine. You’ve alerted me to the problem. Got any solutions for me, Mr. Smarty Pants?”</p><p>“…no,” Selberg admitted grudgingly. “Perhaps if we found some way to spike the transmission…”</p><p>“He finally admits he doesn’t know something.”</p><p>“That is Officer Eiffel’s area of expertise, not mine.”</p><p>“And here I thought that big genius brain of yours knew how to do <em>everything</em>.”</p><p>“Isabel…”</p><p>“Don’t call me that.”</p><p>Selberg sighed, clearly exasperated. “Must every conversation become an argument?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Well, I have had enough of it! Whatever it is you need to say, just say it! Get it off your chest and <em>get over it.”</em></p><p>“Get over it?” Isabel knew she was getting a little hysterical, but couldn’t bring herself to care. “Get over it. Get over you <em>killing</em> people. People we both worked with. People I thought you <em>liked</em>.”</p><p>“I did like them.”</p><p>“Bullshit.”</p><p>“They were all very nice people, Isabel. What was not to like?”</p><p>“Stop. Just… just stop.” Isabel clenched her shaking hands around the edge of the console. Her vision wavered. She wanted to punch something.</p><p>“You are the one who brought them up.”</p><p>“I said <em>shut the hell up</em>.”</p><p>To his very, <em>very</em> small credit, Selberg shut up. Isabel clung to the edge of the console, the thunder of her heartbeat drowning out the world around her.</p><p>She really was going to kill him this time.</p><p>“You don’t regret any of it, do you?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You’re not sorry. You don’t regret it. Not any of them. Not Kuan or Victoire or Sam or Mace. What’s it like to just… just feel <em>nothing?”</em></p><p>“I did not kill Officer Fisher,” Selberg said mulishly.</p><p>“Killed the rest of them, though, didn’t you? And you’re just... Not sorry. For any of it.”</p><p>He laughed, a broken little noise with no humor in it. “Is that what you want from me? An apology? To say I am sorry for their passing?”</p><p>“It might <em>help</em>,” she spat viciously.</p><p>“Being sorry for it will not make them any less dead.”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>“Being sorry—“</p><p>“I said <em>SHUT UP.”</em></p><p>“No! You want to know? Being sorry is <em>useless.</em> Being sorry <em>never</em> made <em>anyone</em> less dead. Not my family, not the others, not—“ His voice choked off in his throat, though he did not remain silent for long. “They are all still dead,” he rasped. “I could regret, or I could choose to work towards change. There is no space for being <em>sorry</em> in the work I do.”</p><p>The station shook around her. Isabel took a deep breath, tried to still the trembling in her hands, tried to focus on the screens in front of her. “You have no goddamn soul.”</p><p>“Yes, well, I have never needed one.” His voice was small, and bitter, and distant, as if he were trying to distance himself from his emotional tirade.</p><p>Isabel’s own fury had faded, and all she was left with was a sick, twisted sort of pity for the man. It felt like a pit in her chest, like a deep, aching, suppurating wound that would never heal.</p><p>It felt like her future.</p><p>Would she be like that? Would she just stop <em>caring</em> some day, stop feeling <em>sorry</em>, stop feeling each loss like a part of herself had been wrenched away with it? What happened when she had no more of herself to give? What would be left?</p><p>Maybe then she’d feel nothing, too.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m waiting!” Eris cooed.</p><p>“Uhhh,” Eiffel said. “Okay, fine. I can’t keep it in any more. <em>I”</em>—he began dramatically—“am the one who ate all the frozen chimichangas during the first month we were on the station.”</p><p>“Nice try,” Eris said sarcastically. One of the lights over the door flashed yellow. “Anyone else feel like being a smartass?”</p><p>“We all knew that was you, anyway,” Hera said.</p><p>“I… was trying to get in to school to write musicals?” Renée offered.</p><p>“What did I say about being a smartass?” Another of the lights blinked yellow.</p><p>“You were <em>what?”</em> Eiffel looked delighted.</p><p>“I guess that <em>does</em> explain the last talent show,” Hera said, clearly on the verge of laughter.</p><p>“It’s like herding cats,” Eris said, clearly speaking to no one in particular. “Any more contributions from the peanut gallery?”</p><p>“Do you think she wants us to tell the Commander about—“</p><p>“<em>Nope</em>.” Eiffel cut Hera off. “No, the Commander definitely does <em>not</em> need to know about that.”</p><p>Renée glared suspiciously at the other two. “About <em>what</em>, exactly?”</p><p>“The random buzzer they hid in your quarters that one time, and <em>no</em>, that is <em>not</em> it, sorry, try again.” The third light flashed yellow.</p><p>“That was <em>you guys?</em>”</p><p>“Hey! Focus here!” Eris said, followed by the sound of someone snapping. All three of the lights over the door flashed red.</p><p>Renée found herself struggling to breathe again as the sleeping bag constricted, and across the room, Hera’s eyes went wide and scared.</p><p>But Eiffel…</p><p>“Officer Eiffel. How about you try again?”</p><p>“I… I don’t…”</p><p>“Sure you do. After all, that wasn’t the first time you’d ended up in solitary, was it?”</p><p>Eiffel squeezed his eyes shut, a pained expression crossing his face. “I hate you.”</p><p>“Most people do. Well?”</p><p>Across the room, Hera let out a pained little gasp as the sleeping bags squeezed tighter.</p><p>“Fine! Okay! If you have to know, I was in prison before I came here.”</p><p>The lights over the door flashed back to yellow, and the sleeping bag released its viselike grip on Renée. She gasped for air. “What…” she began, still trying to breathe normally again, “…what do you mean, you were in prison?”</p><p>“Jail. In the slammer.”</p><p>“I mean…”</p><p>“What for?” Hera asked cautiously, clearly still as breathless as Renée was herself.</p><p>“Does it matter?” Eiffel said, his voice hard and sarcastic. “Surprise! You’ve been working with a criminal.”</p><p>“Yeah, it kinda does!” Renée all but shouted at him. “What the fuck, Eiffel?”</p><p>“Fine, you want to know the dirty details? I was sentenced to twenty-six years, for kidnapping and three counts of child endangerment, and you know what? I. Got. Off. Light.” Eiffel let out a slightly manic laugh. “I deserved every goddamn year of that sentence.”</p><p>Renée shook her head. “No. I don’t... I’m not going to believe… look, there’s got to be something more to this. You wouldn’t just—“</p><p>Eiffel sighed, sounding suddenly exhausted. “Yeah, Commander, I would.” He slumped in his sleeping bag, his chin falling to his chest. “You know what enough alcohol makes seem reasonable? Kidnapping your daughter from your estranged ex-girlfriend, who, by the way, broke up with you and took your little girl with her for a really good goddamn reason.”</p><p>All of Renée’s breath left her again on a startled exhale. “…what?”</p><p>“And you know what’s the <em>best</em> part?” Eiffel drawled, sardonic once more. “I made it out fine. Just fine. Not even a scrape. I put a pair of teenagers in the hospital and one of them might never walk again and Anne…” he took a deep, strained breath. “But I was fine, because the driver always is, aren’t they?”</p><p>“What… what happened to Anne?” The question scraped its way out of Renée’s throat, expecting the worst.</p><p>“Cranial trauma, acute acoustic damage. She’s probably going to be deaf for the rest of her life.” Eiffel swallowed hard. “Could be worse, I guess. And Cutter said… well, I didn’t take this job because I wanted to go to space. He said they might be able to do something for her.” He let out a harsh laugh. “And he as much as threatened to make things worse if I didn’t take it, so God knows how much his promises are good for.”</p><p>“I… I don’t know what to say.”</p><p>“Yeah, well…” Eiffel tilted his head in a semblance of a shrug. “Maybe I deserve to be Hilbert’s lab rat. It’s the most good I’ve done for the world in years.”</p><p>“You don’t deserve that,” Hera said, her voice tight. “No one deserves that.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m with Hera on this one,” Renée said. “Look, no matter what you did, you’re still part of my crew. Okay?”</p><p>Eiffel met her eye, his face a picture of despair and exhaustion. “Okay.”</p><p>The first light over the door flashed green.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>why yes I am cribbing massive chunks of paraphrased dialog from episodes that take place after the star goes blue, thank you very much.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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